Do I have to believe in God to find spiritual peace?

I believe that god is an elderly Caucasian male who had a virgin give birth to his son, just as much as I believe that the world has been created out of the armpit of a giant turtle. Nonetheless, I do believe that the teachings of the prophets of various religions contain great advice and deep insights; if followed, these teachings will bring spiritual understanding and peace. Yet most religions claim that if you don’t believe in their version of divinity, the teachings of their prophets won’t help you. I have therefore been wondering for a long time if unshakable blind belief is an indispensable prerequisite for obtaining the benefits of any religion. If you question if Jesus was God’s son, or if it was God herself who dictated the Ten Commandments to Moses, or the Qur’an to Mohammed, are you then banned from paradise?

My current answer to this question is: no. In fact, the opposite is true. Blind belief creates barriers between all those who blindly believe something slightly different for the same reason. Blind belief leads to separation, which leads to hatred, whereas questioning and critical testing leads to understanding, which leads to unity. Separation is human, whereas unity is divine. Blind belief leads you away from god into worldly struggles for power, whereas searching leads you to spiritual understanding and peace.

The yoga sutras say that devotion is the quick route to enlightenment. If you don’t have a devotional practice, well you have to go the long hard way of knowledge (jnana). Both paths lead to the same destination. However devotion is not belief. Devotion expresses the loving thankfulness to a being that helps you on your path to happiness. You can be thankful to the pilot for bringing you safely from Paris to New York, then you can be thankful the cab driver for bringing you safely from the airport to your Brooklyn home, and finally you can be thankful to your own body for dragging your luggage up the stairs to the second floor and allowing you to finally rest in your sofa. Instead, religious leaders appear to suggest that you should believe that the pilot drops you off in your living room, and to convert or kill all those who take taxis.

Instead of believing, have faith that there is a path to understanding and experiencing the liberating simple truth. Trust that if you seek, you will find. And show devotion and gratitude to all those beings, who, over the course of millennia, have tried to assist others to find their way.

Blind belief can produce a fragile, and hence often aggressive, illusion of well-being. But lasting happiness results from discovering, experiencing and knowing the truth. For this, you have to struggle, you have to seek, you have to question, you have to reflect, and finally understand. This understanding can not be communicated with our words. Enlightenment can not be taught. Religions are only vehicles; the ultimate step to peaceful rest has to be done by you yourself.